Abstract

This case study compares and evaluates learning outcomes in a capstone risk management course when one team of students is engaged in solving an authentic business problem while other teams are involved in the more typical “case study scenario” problems. For the authentic problem, a major manufacturer of building products requested a study to determine the feasibility of offering an incentive captive insurance program to building contractors in return for the contractors using the manufacturer’s product and actively reducing their workers compensation losses. Five year revenue and loss histories were provided to the student team in addition to certain desired attributes and requirements of a captive insurance program. The instructional model followed a collaborative problem solving (CPS) approach within the theoretic framework of experiential learning. Comparisons of learner outcomes were presented with a discussion on the value of authentic problem solving to enable deep learning.

Citation

Mikolaj, P. & Guan, S. (2009). The Power of Being Real: A Case Study on the Impact of Authentic Problem Solving on Learning Outcome. In T. Bastiaens, J. Dron & C. Xin (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2009 (pp. 2943-2950). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).